Very awesome and happy for you and your wife.

Junkhead said:

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I knew OP before he was famous.

And I was a little jealous when he got to meet Dolly Parton and Linda Perry but I am just now finding out about Jennifer Aniston and I'm PISSED. But seriously, congrats to you and the wife.

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man there was so much stuff that I wanted to tell you that day and pics to send but we were under very strict orders to keep everything under wraps until they had a distributor. It was killing me because out of all my friends I knew you were the one person who would instantly appreciate what I was experiencing.

nai06 said:

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Sarduakar said:

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Congrats, KeithDB is fuming

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Also as a benefit, people have accused me of being a KeithDB sock and I feel like this makes it pretty clear I am not

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your wife's book doesnt sound like smut

TexjbA&M said:

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How stressful was the process of giving up control of the novel? I would imagine for your wife as the author that would be incredibly nerve-racking. I'm sure as with all novel to the screen adaptations, things had to be changed. What was that like for her?

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Its really stressful. Most authors don't have any say in the film at all. When you sell the rights, thats pretty much it. They can give you a few assurances, but there typically isn't any guarantee that they stay true to the story.

We have a few other friends that have been through the process and with their own movies. Some have had great experiences and others not so much. If I had to guess most times movie rights to a book sell, the movie isn't even made.


We got very lucky in that everyone involved wanted to stay as true to the book as possible. So that meant my wife was allowed to give a lot of input on things even though they didnt technically have to include her. Its also tough because some things won't ever translate to a screen and book readers are already going to have certain expectations going in.


Our friend Angie Thomas ran into this with her book/film The Hate U Give. She got tons of blowback on social media for casting choices she had no control over.

Rule #1 on Jennifer...

And congrats!! Don't forget us little people

Last week I listened to an interview with Dolly Parton, and she was talking about Dumplin and making new music for it. Had no idea the connection. Very very cool. She sounded genuinely thrilled to be making the music, and that she was interwoven into the story.

She seems like the type of person you could talk to for hours, and feel like you haven't' even scratched the surface.

Quote:

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Soon after we got a call that Disney wanted to buy the film rights which they ended up doing. That was a bit of wild experience just seeing all the things that Disney does. Around this time, Disney began ramping up production on it's live action remakes. About a year later they decided to let the rights expire and not to make the film. It was a pretty big gut punch but there was a silver lining.

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I'm curious about this process. How does this work?

I'm guessing the money they paid for the rights, you get to keep?...but additional money would have come from a percentage of the movie's revenue, had they made it?

But once it expired, did you sell the rights again? Just take a percentage? How does all that work?

Flashdiaz said:

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nai06 said:

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Presley OBannons Sword said:

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GoAgs92 said:

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Congrats, that is super cool!

Just keep your wife away from Ben Affleck...ha.

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Or Jennifer Aniston, apparently.

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Jenn is such a genuinely nice person. On the last day of filming even though she had already wrapped, she arranged for a special food truck to be on set for the overnight shoot for the cast and crew. It served coffee, milk, and cookies all night and she picked up the tab

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oh so now you refer to her as Jenn now... you so hollywood!



but really, cool story. Have your wife write a sequel where Jenn takes her top off and does jumping jacks.

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Genuinely laughed out loud. Not bad, buddy.

Congrats to you and your wife. Getting a book made into a movie is about as likely as winning the lottery. Getting a movie made about your book that closely follows the plot is as likely as getting hit by lightning while holding the winning lottery ticket.

I have an in-law that wrote a script about growing up Catholic in a family of five boys. It was picked up for a movie. But they wanted to make it one boy one girl. And about a single-parent family. And not Catholic. Etc. etc. etc.

Sarduakar said:

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Congrats, KeithDB is fuming

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What's the backstory on this?

AgGrad99 said:

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Last week I listened to an interview with Dolly Parton, and she was talking about Dumplin and making new music for it. Had no idea the connection. Very very cool. She sounded genuinely thrilled to be making the music, and that she was interwoven into the story.

She seems like the type of person you could talk to for hours, and feel like you haven't' even scratched the surface.

Quote:

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Soon after we got a call that Disney wanted to buy the film rights which they ended up doing. That was a bit of wild experience just seeing all the things that Disney does. Around this time, Disney began ramping up production on it's live action remakes. About a year later they decided to let the rights expire and not to make the film. It was a pretty big gut punch but there was a silver lining.

---

I'm curious about this process. How does this work?

I'm guessing the money they paid for the rights, you get to keep?...but additional money would have come from a percentage of the movie's revenue, had they made it?

But once it expired, did you sell the rights again? Just take a percentage? How does all that work?

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Alright this is kinda long

A traditionally published author has a book agent and sometimes a foreign rights agent. My wife also has a film agent. So they negotiate a fee and for a certain amount of time. Something like 2 years. if they don't start production by the time the clock is up, the rights revert back to the owner. If they wanted to make it after that they would have to pay for the rights again. So when Netflix bought the distribution rights they bought a final product. And since the movie was already made that money went to pay for the production. Even if it went for a wide theatrical release, we likely wouldn't see anything on the back end. Typically the move has to make quite a bit before the author would get anything else (like 80 million+). And to be quite honest movies based on Young Adult books rarely make that much. So, this is really a best case scenario for us because it acts like a giant commercial for her books

A friend of ours wrote To All the Boys I've Loved Before which was also a netflix movie. That book is part of a series which is tracked on the NYT YA Series Bestseller list. A couple weeks after her movie released her book sales were high enough that she knocked the Harry Potter Series out of the top spot. That is unheard of in YA world. Because its on Netflix it has a potential to reach a much greater audience than if it were in theaters because it will be available it all english speaking countries.